Since its launch, Baidu Encyclopedia has been presenting itself as a "grassroots encyclopedia". Its operators and supporters claim that compared to the Chinese Wikipedia of American origin, Baidu Encyclopedia will attract more Chinese people. With the participation of netizens, it is more grassroots, it is more suitable for the usage habits of Chinese netizens, it will be more popular, and it will be more successful. Fans further pointed out: Wikipedia is a game for the elite, and it is doomed to fail in China. The only way for Wikipedians to abandon their sectarian views and go to Baidu Encyclopedia is to go to Baidu Encyclopedia.

The question is, is Baidu Encyclopedia truly grassroots?

It is not! Baidu Encyclopedia, such as "Encyclopedia of China" and "Encyclopedia Britannica", belongs only to the elite.

Although Baidu Encyclopedia adopts an open editing system similar to wiki, and although like all wikis, users are allowed to freely add and change content, the essential difference between it and all real wikis is that it does not control plagiarism. and adopt a permissive and encouraging attitude toward copying. The direct result of this is that almost all of the 220,000 pieces of content on Baidu Encyclopedia were plagiarized by "grassroots participants". What the grassroots experience here is only the success and joy of copying, pasting, and earning money. The success and joy of getting points; you will never feel the achievement and joy of writing an encyclopedia by yourself as advertised by Baidu Encyclopedia.

The final result is that Baidu Encyclopedia uses the carrot of points to trick grassroots people into giving up the right given to them by the open editing system to write their own encyclopedias. The Chinese Internet still continues the original pattern: 80% of valuable content is contributed by 20% of the elite, while the other 80% of participants are only responsible for moving this content around.

So, Baidu’s grassroots are grassroots in form, pseudo-grassroots. Its actual role is only to further maintain and strengthen the strong position of a small number of elites in the Chinese Internet world.

The question remains, is Wikipedia a game for the elite?

It is not! Wikipedia is the real grassroots encyclopedia

The participants of Wikipedia are ordinary people. They are college students who go to the cafeteria to watch football in the middle of the night; they are high school students who secretly read comics in class; they are people who read comics every day. The father went to pick up his son from kindergarten; they were clerks who rode bicycles to buy groceries from work. Compared to Robin Li who folds his arms and pretends to be cool, these people are the real grassroots.

What Wikipedia does is just to let these little people know that I can also write an encyclopedia with my own hands. We can check the information ourselves, organize the materials ourselves, write our own pens, and press the shutter to take pictures ourselves. We can also write it. Produce beautiful and complete encyclopedia entries. Looking at the Zhongshan City, imperial examinations, and pagodas here, people can't help but marvel. It turns out that ordinary people can do it.

Let the little people regain their right to speak, this is the real grassroots!

Having said this, I cannot help but mention the old tune: Baidu’s contempt for Chinese netizens.

In Baidu’s eyes, Chinese netizens are greedy, lazy, and imbecile, and writing encyclopedias is an ability only possessed by a very small number of elites. In order to expand the strength of its own company and for the so-called user stickiness, Baidu launched Baidu Encyclopedia for the vast majority of greedy, lazy, and imbecile Chinese netizens: because they are greedy, they use points to stimulate them, and in order to accommodate their laziness and imbecility, they do not tolerate plagiarism. Don't ask. As a result, Baidu gained considerable traffic and cultivated a loyal user group. However, Chinese netizens were like frogs in lukewarm water, slowly giving up the ability to write articles independently and slowly losing the most basic moral judgment on plagiarism. , as a result, Chinese netizens have become increasingly greedy, lazy, and imbecile, and Baidu has become more and more unscrupulous in despising and exploiting Chinese netizens.

Chinese netizens are not immutable. Wikipedia has done this. It lets people know the rights and obligations they should bear, and it allows people to see that they also have the ability to write articles.

A website should bear its social responsibility.

Wikipedia should be better

But for many and various reasons

Wikipedia is basically very inconvenient

If you have a choice

I think you should use Baidu

After all, it is the largest Chinese search engine in the world

If you must go to Wikipedia, Please note that some topics are sensitive topics. Everyone should pay attention to their position when browsing.